I toyed with the idea for several years of doing this and have had a trans sitting here waiting to play with. The 4T65E has its limits and long known history of what breaks and needed improvements and several things we are still working on with them but limited time. I have always pushed something different just to say I did it.
I have well over 100 pictures of this swap currently and have posted a few of them up on our Facebook page. It is easier to plug them all into one spot and I don't have much time on the forums anymore, so love FB or hate it- it does help keep things easier and in one general spot to watch.
The fresh built turbo engine is bolted up to a 4T80E transmission and installed in the car. A few small details to iron out yet but most of the parts are sitting here ready to use, just lack of time to push hard on this project but should be finished up soon.
There were several obstacles to make this work! The engine had to move forward about an inch for the monstrous transmission to clear the back of the cradle. All new custom engine and transmission mounts were made for this to work. NO dogbone mounts will be used on this car so that opens up room on the top side. Moving the engine forward also buys room for turbo piping which is a plus! The factory front manifold was used more as a reference than anything else. There is only about a 1/4" of room between the manifold and the heat shield on the passenger side cooling fan, I am a big fan of thermal wraps on exhaust anyways and is much needed for this application. Custom manifolds/headers will eventually be built for this but probably not until spring time.
So is it worth all the work? Who knows, but there are so many benefits with this transmission in the strength department so the goal is to break it and see what and why. This transmission factory has a much stronger 30 spline input shaft, 7/16 pitch 1" chain with massive sprockets and support bearings, larger clutches end to end, good selection of gear ratios, and the best part is there are thousands of these in salvage yards cheap.
